India logs 2.38 lakh new COVID-19 cases, 8.31% less than yesterday

India's Covid graph witnessed a marginal improvement on Tuesday as the country reported 2.58 lakh cases, which is around 5 per cent lower than yesterday.

The country's caseload now stands at 3.73 crores.

With regard to the Omicron variant, 8,891 cases have been detected so far. This marks an 8.31 per cent increase since Monday, January 17. The daily positivity rate is currently at 14.43 per cent, while the weekly positivity rate is at 14.92 per cent.

Experts said it is not possible to undertake genome sequencing of each and every sample but stressed that the current wave is largely being driven by the Omicron variant.

As many as 385 people have died of Covid during the past 24-hour period, according to the Health Ministry.

The new fatalities include 158 from Kerala and 36 from West Bengal. Of the total deaths reported so far in the country, 1,41,808 are from Maharashtra, 50,832 from Kerala, 38,431 from Karnataka, 36,989 from Tamil Nadu, 25,363 from Delhi, 22,963 from Uttar Pradesh and 20,088 from West Bengal

According to the Centre's new guidelines, asymptomatic patients do not need to undergo a test. Also, contacts of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients need not get tested unless they have comorbidities or are aged above 60.

Under the nationwide vaccination drive, India has administered 158.04 crore doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. The recovery rate in the country is currently 94.09 per cent.

A total of 1,57,421 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, increasing the total recoveries to 3,53,94,882.

The active cases now comprise 4.43 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has decreased to 94.27 per cent. The daily positivity rate is up from 16.28% to 19.65% while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 14.41 per cent.

As many as 70.54 crore Covid-19 tests have been conducted so far in India. In the last 24 hours, 16,49,143 tests were conducted in the country.